1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus associated with a character recognition system.
2. Discussion
Character recognition systems are used within a wide variety of industrial and commercial applications. These systems allow a plurality of characters to be recognized in order to effectively do such things as: identify and analyze manufacturing faults, identify types of goods for processing, or a plurality of other similar types of activities.
These character recognition systems are normally embodied within a given computerized vision system as a feature thereof. If an individual user, having a computerized vision system, wishes to add a character recognition system to the vision system, he normally would need a specifically tailored recognition system. If the vendor providing the vision system had no recognition system, the individual user would be forced to purchase an entirely new vision and recognition system.
Additionally, these character recognition systems required the use of a highly complex set of operations which are usually written in a highly complex programming language. The complexity associated with the creation of such a complex set of character recognition operations has been a great impediment to the development of the use of such character recognition systems in many areas. In particular, this complexity has been due to the complex nature associated with the presentation of these vision operations to a user and to the highly complex nature of the entire teaching process. Additionally, many of these systems don't allow a user to manually teach characters resulting in a decrease in the utility or effectiveness of the system. For all of these above-mentioned reasons, it is greatly believed that growth in such character recognition systems has been stunted and great improvements may be made in these areas.